Plumbing & Electrical advice for enjoying your holiday!

If you’re heading away from home on holiday here’s some top tips to prevent plumbing and electrical emergencies from ruining your return. 

• Know where and how to turn your water off.  Tips for how to find your toby box are here.  Once you’ve found your toby and turned it off, run an outside tap to ensure there’s no water coming out.
• Turn the power off to your hot water cylinder.  There’s no point in heating hot water while you’re away, save the money!  Just note though that they’ll be a delay in getting hot water after you get home again and turned the power back on.
• If you have gas hot water, leave the power on but turn the gas isolation valve off (it’s probably yellow).  If you’re unsure, please ring and we can either show you or do this for you. 
• Unplug all non-essential electrical items to save power, money and prevent risk. Probably not your fridge but bedside lights, electric blankets, those sorts of things.
• Summer is the perfect time to talk to Foleys about checking all your plumbing fixtures.  We’re experts at ensuring your taps, toilets and roofs are all in good condition.

Not heading away, guests coming to stay

If you’re not heading away but you’ve got extras in your home, here’s some great conversation starters for ensuring you don’t need a plumber to unblock your drains or toilet. 

• The only thing to flush down your toilet, apart from the obvious, is toilet paper.  Wipes, even flushable ones, nappies and feminine hygiene products can all cause blockages.  It’s just easiest to put them in your rubbish. 
• Don’t put fats, grease, oil, food waste or coffee grinds down your sink.  It all builds up and the holidays aren’t the ideal time for this build-up to block your sink. 
• Waste disposals don’t like egg shells, animal bones, pasta, rice, bread, nuts, shells, corn husks, fruit stones including avocado, or banana skins and when you are using your waste disposal it does love water being continuously run. If you’re trying to save water, we can chat about removing your waste disposal. Summer is the perfect time to start a compost! 

All is not lost though, because we can rescue you if anything goes wrong.  Just call us 24/7 and we’ll be there to help.